The Prisoner of Azkaban
by muggleborn.dragon.ryder
Summary: The dementors made short work of Rubeus Hagrid. Lucky he got out when he did. Hagrid's stint in Azkaban in COS. Rated T for dark thoughts.


_**The Prisoner of Azkaban **_

**A/N: Um, so yeah. This is my first Harry Potter story. I'm not very good at writing Harry Potter, but I was rereading the series, and I started the Prisoner of Azkaban, and oh my gosh Hagrid's line about "I started to wish I'd just die in me sleep..." It screamed angst, and I love angst XD**

* * *

Hagrid had time to think as they took him to Azkaban, by surprisingly non-magical means at the edge of the sea, and then in a boat that went a bit too fast to be completely ordinary. He watched the spray shoot up against the side in white flecks, and he felt his huge hands shaking, but he was strangely removed from the scene, praying that Ron and Harry had gotten his hint, and hoping against hope that the Minister would realize he had taken the wrong person. Hagrid didn't know who had opened the Chamber all those years ago, and he didn't know who had opened it now, but he knew one thing: he was innocent.

He wanted to plead with his guards, beg them not to take him, but he couldn't make his lips move, and he knew they wouldn't listen anyway. He knew how prejudiced the Ministry could be against people like him; there was no chance of his name being cleared in the time it would take for them to reach Azkaban.

He hoped, rather weakly, that Harry had gotten the hint and now knew he was innocent, because being in Azkaban was bad enough, but being there with the idea that Harry and Ron thought badly of him made it even harder. He would never attack Muggle-borns. He would never have done any harm against a Muggle-born, even before meeting Hermione, but after…he adored her. She was almost like a daughter to him, the way Harry and Ron were almost like his sons. He stared unseeingly down at his hands as he wondered what the Ministry must be thinking of him now, now that he had been convicted to a stint in Azkaban.

And Hagrid knew when they had arrived, even before they had, because a wave of cold swept over him, making him feel sick for a few moments before he heard a rattling breath, and then dark thoughts began taking over his mind. What if the Heir of Slytherin destroyed the Mandrakes, and made it impossible for the Muggle-borns to recover? Fudge had probably already decided that Hagrid was guilty, and was convicting him to a life sentence…

He vaguely registered being led out of the boat, onto dry land, the ground seeming to tilt beneath him for a few long seconds. His knees shaking from fear of what was to come, he set off with the Ministry guards in the lead, only to come to a stop at a single, empty cell with no dementors around it. Hagrid's heart lifted in momentary hope that they were simply leaving him in isolation; he had survived things like this before, he could do it again…

They chained him to the wall, his arms bent awkwardly behind his back, and when they left, his hopes were dashed: that cold was sweeping over him again, and he could see through the thick wooden bars of his cell, that there were two dementors stationed on either side of his door. The dark thoughts tried to edge back into his mind, but he shoved them out. He had heard tell of people who had entered in here and lost their minds within days. He was innocent, and he was not going to be declared so only to have lost his sanity. He wouldn't allow the dark thoughts. The dementors were meant to be a punishment, but he didn't deserve to be punished. _He didn't deserve to be punished._

* * *

The Mandrakes were probably destroyed. The Heir of Slytherin had finished Hermione off. The school was probably even now closing down, sending everyone back to their families. Hagrid wondered how this was affecting Harry, considering how much he loved Hogwarts and hated the Dursleys. There had probably been deaths since Dumbledore had stepped down. Hagrid wondered drearily if he would ever be allowed out, if the Heir of Slytherin was doing his job well, so well that the finger of blame was still pointing directly at Hagrid.

The gamekeeper leaned against the cold stone wall, feeling drained and exhausted, his lungs stinging from the intensely cold air that he kept trying frantically to breathe in. It felt as though there was no air left, as though he was suffocating in a tiny cell, and there was nobody around to hear him, nobody around to hear his cries of help…

It was like it had been when his father had died, when he had spent nearly every night in his dormitory crying, and nobody had cared, not a single person, no, all the Slytherins cared about was that the awkward boy who loved interesting creatures remembered his place. For a moment, he remembered another time, quite apart from the dark days following his father's death. He remembered his father reading to him before he could do so himself, telling him stories about the wizarding world. He had always been concerned for his son, tried to keep him mainly hidden from society, scared that people would find out what he was and ridicule him.

A warm glow filled Hagrid momentarily, a glow that drove away the dementors' cold completely, a beautiful, wonderful thing that he tried his hardest to hold onto…

And then the dementors found their way back inside his mind, reminding him that, although his father had been a wonderful man, he was no longer here.

* * *

Hagrid opened his eyes, looking blearily around at the wooden cell that had become his living nightmare, and he realized that sleep wasn't the only thing still blurring his eyes; there were hot tears pricking at the corners. There was another day to be faced, another day to spend thinking about what might be happening at Hogwarts, thinking about his father, the day he was expelled, the days he had tried to find a wizarding school that would accept him, after he had been expelled. And then that night, he would lay down upon his moldy bed and he would not cry, because his misery was stronger than tears could relieve, and he would dream of terrible things, have vicious nightmares, only to wake to one that was infinitely worse…

Hagrid wished he had died in his sleep.

* * *

Hagrid heard the footsteps but he felt like they were coming from a very long way away, probably doing their regular check of the prison, making sure everything was secure, all prisoners were safely trapped within their own misery…

"Rubeus Hagrid!" The Ministry representative called, but Hagrid did not stir. If that was his name, then he did not remember it. He had no name anymore. He had no identity. He felt as if he did not exist in this world any longer. He wasn't really living; he was dead, out-of-body, watching the events unfold from another point of view.

"Hagrid," The Ministry man was staring down at him imperiously. "Rubeus Hagrid, I am speaking to you."

Hagrid continued to stare down at the stone floor. It didn't matter if the man was speaking to him. There was nothing he wanted to hear, nothing except—

"The Minister has declared you innocent, Rubeus," the man said stiffly. "You are to be freed and he apologizes deeply for his mistake."

Hagrid glanced up, hardly able to believe what the man was saying. "You're…you're not…"

The cell door magically swung open, and Hagrid felt a great relief wash over him. The Ministry representative led him slowly out of the cell, and he collapsed, trembling, against the stone wall. He thought he might cry, his emotions were so scattered.

The dementors drew suddenly closer to the two men, drawing in those rattling breaths, but the man scowled at them. "Rubeus Hagrid is innocent," he told the cloaked figures sternly. "You must let him go now."

A scabbed gray hand clung to Hagrid's arm, trying to pull him back into the cell, but Hagrid wouldn't let them, he would fight them all the way, now that he had something to fight for…

"_Expecto Patronum_." The man's voice was calm, almost lazy, as if he didn't think Hagrid ought to be freed either. "Get away from him, I have told you." A silvery-white shape burst out of the man's wand and the dementor drew back, releasing Hagrid's arm.

And then another hand grabbed his arm, tugging him away, and Hagrid stumbled blindly after the man. Even though he was surrounded by dementors and the Patronus was fading slowly away, Hagrid felt alive again, and he knew nothing could snuff out this glow.


End file.
